Create Tables

Within any document report, you can present information using simple tables with any number of rows and columns. In a report template, it is also possible to render a model section as a table, defined with any number of columns but with only two rows. You can either add your own text to the tables, or populate the table cells with fields that extract information from your model.

Access

Ribbon

Document-Edit > Paragraph > Table > [option]

Create and format a table

To

Action

See also

Insert a table in the document

Position the cursor on the point in the text to create the table, and select the option 'Document-Edit > Paragraph > Table > Insert Table'.

The 'New Table Parameters' dialog displays, in which you specify the number of table rows and columns. For a model section table in a report template you can accept the default values of two rows and three columns. Click on the OK button.

Your table might be invisible; if so, select the option 'Document-Edit > Paragraph > Table > Show Gridlines' to reveal the table and cell borders in dotted lines. These lines are for guidance in creating the document, and do not display on the printed document. You can add printable borders using other context menu options.

The editor initially creates a table with cells of equal width across the page; you can change the cell width by dragging the cell borders using the mouse, or using other context menu options.

You can apply the setting to the selected rows only, or select the 'Apply to all rows in the current table' checkbox to set the height of all rows in the table.

Add a header row

Select the top row of the table, and then select the option 'Document-Edit > Paragraph > Table > Header Row'. Apply any heading text, settings and formatting to the highlighted row.

In the document or compiled report, the heading row is repeated at the top of the columns each time the table flows on to a new page. In a report, if the heading row is populated with the values from field names, the heading rows on subsequent pages reflect the values from that first row.

This option operates on the single row at the top of the table, and not on multiple rows. If you edit the table and add a row to the top of the table to act as a new header, selecting the menu option on the new row clears the previous setting.

The 'Cell Shading Parameters' dialog displays, in which you type the shading percentage.

Shading is the intensity of the cell background color, expressed as a percentage, and is uniform across the selected cells. If the cells have no colored background, a shading of 0% is white. For colored backgrounds, 0% is the color initially set. In all cases, a shading of 100% is black.

The 'Cell Vertical Alignment' dialog displays, on which you select to align the text in the selected cells by the top, center or bottom of the cell or the baseline of the lowest top line of text.

Text in a table defaults to being aligned with the top of the cell and, as you type it in, it scrolls downwards. You can change this alignment to the center or bottom of the cell so that text scrolls out from the center or up from the bottom of the cell.

If you have special formatting - such as 'before-paragraph' spacing - you can align the text to the base of the lowest first line (the baseline), so that text in a row of cells is aligned with the special formatted text rather than with the top or bottom of the cell. If the special formatting is changed or removed, the text remains aligned.

The 'Cell Text Rotation' dialog displays, on which you select to display text vertically up the cell, vertically down the cell or, if the text is already vertical, horizontally across the cell,

Text in a table defaults to running horizontally across the cell from left to right, and scrolling down the cell from top to bottom. You can change the text position so that the text is rotated through 90 degrees to display:

From top to bottom, scrolling across the cell from right to left, or

From bottom to top, scrolling across the cell from left to right

If the text is running horizontally, you can type as much as you need - the row height increases to accommodate the text. If the text is running vertically, you adjust the row height and column width manually to accommodate your text.

Show or hide grid lines for the current table. Note that, for printing purposes, 'Border Width' must be set to a non-zero value.

Notes

Under some circumstances, a table in a generated report might repeat the header row rather than the output row; if this occurs, create another row in the table between the header row and the output row, and leave this blank